March 22, 2007

By Diane Chiddister

At Village Council’s meeting March 19, an informal Fogg farm pre-annexation agreement between the Village and developer Doug Miller received high marks for energy-efficient construction practices but low marks for affordable housing. Council requested that Miller meet with Home, Inc. Director Marianne MacQueen to try to work out an agreement for more affordable housing in the development.

Miller was not present at the March 19 meeting, but Council requested that Village Manager Eric Swansen encourage Miller to meet with MacQueen to work out a new agreement on affordable housing. In the meantime, Council requested that Village Solicitor Shannon Martin start preparing all parts of the pre-annexation agreement except that for affordable housing.

Because of the delay, Council members — except Bruce Rickenbach, who was not present — stated that they would not vote on the Fogg farm annexation at their next meeting, on April 2, as originally planned. Rather, they will address the pre-annexation agreement at that meeting and will probably then set a special meeting on April 23 to vote on the annex request. Council has stated it will not vote on the Fogg farm issue at its April 15 meeting because all members will not be present.

According to state law, Council has until May 1 to either accept or reject the annexation request from Fogg farm owners Miller and the Fogg family trust. At a previous meeting, Miller presented concept plans for a 210-home residential development on the 39-acre Fogg farm on the western edge of Yellow Springs, adjacent to Yellow Springs High School.

At Council’s last meeting, Council approved 4–1 the first reading of the Fogg farm annexation request, with Judith Hempfling voting against the annexation. Council members who approved the first reading stated then that they were doing so to move the process forward, and to have the opportunity to consider possible pre-annexation agreements.

At an earlier meeting, Council had requested that Swansen meet with Miller to negotiate a pre-annexation agreement. Pre-annex agreements, which are fairly common between municipalities and landowners who request annexation, would give the Village more control over the Fogg farm development, according to Assistant Village Solicitor Martin. Council had requested that Swansen include in a pre-annex agreement such elements as homes with increased energy efficiency ratings, affordable housing, open space, the creation of a playground and the creation of a bike and pedestrian path, although it had not provided specifics as to how to do so.

At the March 19 meeting, Swansen presented the pre-annex areas of agreement and disagreement between the Village and Miller. Miller agreed to most aspects of energy-efficient construction and the use of Energy Star specifications for structures, including heating and cooling, effective insulation, and high energy windows. However, the installation of energy-efficient appliances would be optional rather than required, as the Village had requested.

Miller’s agreement to abide by the Energy Star construction practices is impressive, according to Pat Murphy, director of The Community Solution and a local expert on peak oil issues.

“I think Energy Star is without a doubt the most energy efficient program in the country,” Murphy said at the meeting. “Frankly, I was surprised that he agreed.”

But Miller’s willingness to provide affordable housing was less impressive, according to several who attended the meeting. In a letter to Council, the Home, Inc. board of trustees requested that 25 percent of the Fogg farm homes be in the $130,000 to $180,000 price range, which would make them affordable to persons who earn less than 80 percent of the area medium income. However, Miller agreed to provide 15 percent of the development’s homes at a price of $170,000 or below.

Selling houses below $180,000 most often means partnering with an organization that can provide subsidies to homebuyers, according to MacQueen, who expressed Home, Inc.’s willingness to be a partner in the Fogg farm development. But according to Swansen, Miller had not expressed interest in having such a partner.

“He’s a realtor,” Swansen said. “He doesn’t specialize in meeting the needs of those who need affordable housing. He doesn’t know what it will do to his bottom line.”

However, Council requested that Swansen encourage Miller to meet with MacQueen to try to work out an agreement. Part of the difficulty in reaching an agreement with Miller on affordable housing is that the Village itself has not been clear about its affordable housing needs, Swansen said.

“This has never been studied by Council,” Swansen said. “We’ve never done any planning to say we need ‘x’ number of units available.”

The need for such a discussion is one reason why Council should say no to the annexation request at this point, according to community member Matt Housh, who requested that Council take the time to identify the community’s need for affordable housing before moving forward with the annexation.

While Council needs to have such a discussion, it also needs to address the Fogg farm request, according to Council member Kathryn Van der Heiden.

“We have an annexation agreement before us and we need to respond,” she said.

But a house that costs $170,000 is not affordable housing, according to community member Eli Hurwitz, who has two children.

“We want to bring in families like mine,” Hurwitz said. “As far as $170,000 goes, I’m a public school teacher and that’s not affordable.”

In other areas of the pre-annexation agreement, Miller agreed to encourage the use of recycled content in building materials, and to land use approval by a planned unit development, or PUD. He also agreed to provide a pedestrian path and a six-foot wide bicycle path and to use a gravity sewer to the greatest extent possible. In addition, he agreed to provide a playground if the development includes a homeowners’ association, and to provide as landscaping a minimum of one tree per single family unit and one tree for every 50-lineal feet, along with a naturally vegetated area of green space on the western edge of the property. He stated that he is commiting a maximum of $400 per unit for the Village to use at Village discretion to provide infrastructure costs, a position that is “really close” to agreement with Village requests, Swansen said.

In other Village business:
• Council members discussed their upcoming retreat, which will take place Saturday, March 31, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church.

The purpose of the retreat is “team-building,” according to Council member Kathryn Van der Heiden, who described the retreat as “a concentrated time not doing any business but concentrating on how we interact with each other and with the community at large.”

However, Council members disagreed on whether they should include the public in the retreat. While the gathering is necessarily a public meeting and therefore must be open to the public, the majority of Council members stated that they will request that the public not attend. If members of the public choose to attend, then Council will not proceed with the meeting, several said.

“I don’t see how it can be a useful exercise with having to be in the public eye,” Van der Heiden said. “We can’t lock the doors but it would be good to have the opportunity” to interact without being observed by the public, she said.

Hempfling stated that she did not agree with asking the public not to attend.

Contact: dchiddister@ywnews.com